With a great understanding of what makes you stand out from the crowd, we spoke to Tribe Tech consultant Carly Murrell about interview prep in the fast paced world of technology recruitment.
Do more than just read the company’s ‘About Us’ page
By this point in your career, you’ve been through enough interviews to know to review the company website beforehand. However, we recommend you look a little deeper than that! You and your competition will be bringing technical expertise, but if you want to stand out, take the time to get more familiar with the company before you get to that interview.
Look into the following on the company:
- Company vision and how the role you’re applying for fits into that vision.
- Products or Services they provide – be able to talk to them by name.
- Company culture plays a huge role in a company’s hiring process. Your recruiter can help guide you on this too.
LinkedIn Preparation
LinkedIn is your friend while prepping. There are a handful of ways to utilise LI so you’re ready to answer and develop any questions in your interview. Take a look at the following:
- The company overview About Section
- The posts they have done recently- this may give you an idea of their priorities and projects at the moment.
- The people you will be meeting - Make sure to know the names and job titles of those you’re interviewing with.
- Any jobs they have posted – what are they hiring for?
- The people that work there including those who hold the same role presently or have had it in the past - what do their backgrounds look like? Do you know any of them?
Prepare for scenario, competency, and technical based questions
Throughout an interview process, you may experience one or a combination of the three standard assessment methods.
In the tech world, this usually involves scenario-based questions. I.e., a coding problem for you to solve on a whiteboard or piece of paper. Take time to research typical whiteboard questions prior to the interview and practice writing out your answers on paper-time yourself. Remember- It’s ok if you are not entirely correct! The aim here is for the interviewer to get a better understanding of your thought processes and problem solving under pressure.
Competency-based questions will focus on your achievements and specific projects you have worked on. Be prepared to talk through the process of how you worked on these projects and why they were a success. The STAR technique can be helpful in structuring your answer (situation, task, action and result). Describe the situation and set the scene, explain the task you undertook in this situation, the action that was taken and the results of the action.
Now for the technical-based questions. These questions are designed to test your technical knowledge, for instance: “In HTML, how do you separate a section of text?” or “What do you understand about Cookies in JavaScript?”. Questions will depend on the type of role you are applying for, so be very familiar with the job description.
Remember, soft skills are key
As a techy, your technical expertise is going to be a focal point of the interview, but employers are also looking to hire for soft skills. Communication, teamwork, leadership, self-motivation and positive attitude are just a few. For example, communication: there is a lot of jargon and complex terminology in tech and at times, you’ll need to be able to explain your work to others outside of the IT environment.
As a tech expert, you have an expansive knowledge of tech and sharp skills to offer – so don’t undersell yourself! Come prepared, cover your bases in terms of what to expect, and be confident in what you bring to the table.
Remember one very powerful way to show your knowledge of an area is by asking detailed questions in that area – so do your research on what areas within the role you can talk about and prepare some detailed questions.
Also, when answering questions start your responses at the 10,000-foot level of detail so your answers are concise and not more than 60-90 seconds. This will help you stay on course and avoid waffling into something unrelated. You can then ask if there are any areas they would like more detail on!
Get in touch with the team at Tribe Tech to find your Tribe.
